1937: Filling the Sauerkraut Sinkhole

The "sinkhole" -- actually a nearly bottomless marshy area at the edge of the eutrophied Sauerkraut Lake, located south of the US-127/M-34 was the bane of road builders for over a century. Many attempts had been made to lay roads across it, or bridge it, but the soft muck defeated them.

In 1932, the state highway department decided to fix the sinkhole and stop the diversion of traffic through town, once and for all. Their tactic was to fill it in, loading gravel and rock on top of the soft soil that was nearly thirty feet deep, and let the weight push the muck out to the side with the help of spring thaws and a judicious amount of dynamite. Once on the surface, the muck could be be scraped up and carried off. It was an ingenious approach to an old problem, although it took years longer to complete than expected.

Two large steam shovels and a host of trucks were required to do the work. The Post-Gazette noted in April of 1937 that the muck banks on either side of the fill had been pushed up as high as 15 feet, bringing with it cordury logs and even an old plank bridge that had once been used to attempt to cross the  swamp.

But that wasn't the end of the problem. The filling of the "sinkhole", and backfilling to either side, altered the underground hydrodynamics, and the area flooded repeatedly for the next half century -- made worse by the fact that several businesses had located along the attractive commercial district created by the fills. Floods occurred after heavy rains, or after big spring thaws, and the intersection of US-127 and M-34 was flooded time after time. Pat Reuter, owner of CR Motors, remembers the many times as a boy the race to get cars off the lot and up to the Thompson Field parking lot. It was a well-practiced drill over the years.

The Cole Drain, in 1987, finally tamed Sauerkraut Lake; that year was the last time the intersection flooded. But, no one affected thinks the story is over with -- Sauerkraut Lake may be sleeping, but could still awake.